NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker is ordinarily one of the Obama campaign’s most visible supporters from New Jersey.

But on national television Sunday, Booker went off-message to say he was nauseated by Obama campaign ads criticizing Mitt Romney’s record at private equity firm Bain Capital, just as he was sickened by the Romney camp’s association of Obama with his former pastor.

"This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides," Booker, a Democrat, said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "It’s nauseating to the American Public. Enough is enough. Stop criticizing Bain Capital. Stop criticizing Jeremiah Wright."

Wright is the African-American church leader whose rhetoric has been criticized as anti-white, and criticism during the 2008 campaign forced Obama to break his ties with the Chicago clergyman. Romney renounced a plan by a PAC supporting him to broadcast new ads tying Obama to Wright.

On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Booker was in a round table discussion of the 2012 race when host David Gregory prodded him to defend the Obama campaign’s attempt to portray Romney as a real-life Gordon Gekko, the guru of greed in the 1987 Oliver Stone film, "Wall Street." But rather than defend the campaign, Booker distanced himself from it.

"As far as that stuff, I’d have to say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity," said Booker, whose own campaings have raised money from Wall Street firms. "This, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with."

The attacks on Romney’s tenure at Bain focus on the firm’s use of outsourcing and layoffs to maximize profits at companies Bain invests in. Romney claims that Bain has created jobs, a point Booker also made on "Meet the Press."

"If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses to grow," Booker said.

Booker’s independence from Democrats should come as little surprise. Before Sunday’s "Meet the Press," the most recent of his frequent appearances on the small screen was in a video last week with Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who endorsed Romney in 2012 and is often mentioned as a possible running mate. The comic video spoofs both Booker’s recent heroics rescuing a neighbor in a Newark apartment fire, and the talk of Christie for V.P.

Booker and Christie both declined to comment on the "Meet the Press" remarks.

The chaiman of the state Democratic Party, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), said he did not believe Booker was being disloyal to the party. But he did say that Booker’s criticism "misses the point."

"It’s not about whether private equiity is good or bad, it’s how Mitt Romney, at Bain Captal, utilized his position at a private equity firm to choose to create wealth as opposed to jobs," said Wisniewski. "And it is a real issue, when you have the Romney campaign talking about job creation."